Winter is coming; the importance of Winter Term

The three-week holiday has come and gone and the masses have returned from their annual pilgrimages to the North or from their Balinese adventure to soak up the sun. For our boys across Junior, Middle and Senior School, the nine week Winter Term is of vital importance.

In Junior and Middle School, it is an opportunity to consolidate the learning that they have completed in the first Semester. Armed with the feedback of the reports, each boy should look to set some personal learning goals, which they discuss with their parents and teachers, in order to ensure the second half of the year is that bit better than the first.

For boys in Year 5 and 8, it is the last year that you will complete within that sub-school. Make sure you leave a lasting positive impression on the people who have guided you through the journey and prepared you for the next. Take the opportunities afforded to you in this, the last semester as the leaders, before you move into a new sub-school to begin a new exciting part of your schooling.

For our Senior boys, Winter Term represents the last term within our current academic year. This presents a myriad of opportunities as well as challenges, both which should be embraced. The term offers the chance to prepare yourself as well as possible for the next academic hurdle within school, or indeed for our Leavers of 2016, for the conclusion of their formal schooling.

With the Olympic Games commencing this month, I invite the boys to consider the athletes that we will see competing, those who win medals, as well as those who do not. The events that they are competing in, which billions around the world will watch live, are the culmination of their efforts; they represent the years of hard work and dedication that could all be over in a fraction of a second. The same comparison can be made for our Year 12s as they prepare for their final exams, they represent the entirety of your education to date, not just this years' worth of work.

I encourage all of the boys to speak openly to their teachers, ask for feedback, find out how to get that extra mark, communicate your concerns, all in an attempt to make Winter Term as productive as it possibly can be.